Finding Sources
Also known as "Scholarly Articles,", "Peer-Reviewed Articles," or "Academic Articles," these are:
- Written and reviewed by scholars and provide new research, analysis, or information about a specific topic.
- "Review" means the article is approved by other experts before publication
- Usually focused on a narrow subject or a single case study
- Intended for an academic audience
Why You Should Use Them:
- Information is based on research and expertise
- Information is detailed and focused on a narrow topic
- The peer-review process (mostly) insures that the information is accurate
- They add to a growing understanding of a topic by contributing new ideas
Find Communications and Marketing Articles:
- Communication & Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new windowCMMC offers full text and cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for journals covering communication, mass media, linguistics, discourse, rhetoric, sociolinguistics, communication theory, language, logic, organizational communication and other closely related fields of study.
- Communication Studies Journals This link opens in a new windowContains over 60 journals related to communication education, rhetoric, journalism and western communication to name a few of the titles.
- ABI/Inform Collection This link opens in a new windowThe collection features thousands of full-text journals, dissertations, working papers, key business and economics periodicals. Country-and industry-focused reports, and major news sources like the Wall Street Journal. Its international coverage gives researchers a complete picture of companies and business trends around the world.. 1971-present
- Business Source Complete This link opens in a new windowScholarly and peer-reviewed publications, magazines on a wide range of topics including: marketing, management, company profiles, industry profiles, market research reports, SWOT analyses and more
- Entrepreneurship Database This link opens in a new windowFull-text database about entrepreneurship. Includes video clips, market research reports, start-up plans, templates, and forms, scholarly journals, business cases, working papers, conference proceedings, and dissertations.
Find Additional Communication Databases & Resources:
We can't list all of the amazing Communications resources that are out there. But we have linked to a lot of them on our Communications Databases & Resources page. So if you need more, check it out!
General Databases:
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowScholarly full-text journals and peer-reviewed journals covering a wide range of subjects. 1975 to present.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowJSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources. Coverage includes history, economics, political science, demography, mathematics, humanities and social sciences. Some current issues are available now.
- Research Library (ProQuest) This link opens in a new windowGeneral reference database from business and political science to literature and psychology scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, and daily news content, accessible to readers and researchers at every level.
Access All Databases:
Use these resources to find newspaper articles.
Why You Should Use Them:
- May be considered a primary source if written at the time an event occurred
- May include eyewitness or firsthand accounts of events
- Frequently include other primary source objects like photographs, editorials, political cartoons, letters to the editor, advertisements, etc.
Find Newspaper Articles:
Elon offers complete digital access for several newspapers and magazines. Simply create a free account at whichever you like best (or all of them!). Make sure to use your Elon email address.
- New York Times -- nytimes.com/pass
- Wall Street Journal -- http://www.wsj.com/elon
- Washington Post -- https://www.washingtonpost.com/ (go to Sign in > Sign up -- find more detailed instructions)
- The Atlantic -- http://www.theatlantic.com/group-login
- Access World News This link opens in a new windowThis comprehensive news collection cover events at the local, regional, national and international level. This source includes print and online-only newspapers, blogs, newswires, journals, broadcast transcripts and videos. Also includes news articles from 1970-1991, including firsthand reports and varying regional perspectives. (Primary source)
- International Newsstream This link opens in a new windowProvides information from more than 660 of the world's top newspapers, including The Times (London), The Bangkok Post, El Norte, Financial Times, The Guardian, Jerusalem Post, South China Morning Post, The Daily Telegraph, Asian Wall Street Journal, and much more
- PressReader This link opens in a new windowInstant access to 6000+ newspapers and magazines from 120+ countries in 60+ languages. These are usually daily papers; no archives.
- Regional Business News This link opens in a new windowCovers business journals, newspapers and newswires from all metropolitan and rural areas within the United States.
- U.S. Newsstream This link opens in a new windowNews content from many national and international newspapers, newswires and selected news magazines. Includes CBS News 60 Minutes transcripts and video from 1997-2014.
Find Additional Newspapers:
Polls and surveys are a type of data collected from specific populations. Poll and survey questions gather information, preferences, choices, or opinions from these populations. In historical research, they may provide information about social, political, or national issues during specific time periods or from geographic regions.
Be sure to speak with a librarian if you don't find what you need. They will be able to suggest other sources of information to help you with your research needs.
Find Polls & Surveys:
- Statista This link opens in a new windowStatistics, studies and reports from over 18,000 sources. Includes data from businesses, government departments, market research concerns or associations and more.
- Consumer Expenditure Survey This link opens in a new windowContains two surveys, the Quarterly Interview Survey and the Diary Survey, that provide information on the buying habits of America's consumers, including data on their expenditures, income, and consumer unit (families and single consumers) characteristics. The survey data are collected for the Bureau of Labor Statistics by the U.S. Census Bureau.
- PEW Research Center This link opens in a new windowPew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.
- Polling the Nations This link opens in a new windowPublic opinion polls containing 350,000 questions and responses from 14,000 surveys in the U.S. and 80 other countries, 1986-present.
- Roper Center for Public Opinion Research This link opens in a new windowOne of the world's leading archives of social science data, specializing in data from surveys of public opinion. 1930- present. Available only to Elon students, faculty and staff
Books written by scholars are a good source of information for many topics.
Why You Should Use Them:
- Written on a broad subject
- Easier to read than journal articles, and written for a broad audience
- Often undergo a peer-review process
- May contain a collection of chapters written by different authors
- Contain less recent information, due to the lengthy publication process
Remember: you may only need to read one chapter of a scholarly book!
Find Books:
- Search Belk Library's online system to find both library materials and articles in our databases. Use the search box below to do a basic search on library materials and databases.
Interlibrary Loan:
- Interlibrary LoanIf we don't have the book, chapter or article you need, you can request it here!